Edward Snowden: 'I was trained as a spy'

Edward Snowden wants you to know that he is no low-level administrator, but a well-trained spy.

“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word — in that I lived and worked undercover, overseas, pretending to work in a job that I’m not and even being assigned a name that was not mine,” Snowden said in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams for the “Nightly News” released Tuesday night.

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Snowden: 'I've done the right thing'

This will be the first television interview with the U.S. news media since the National Security Agency leaker gained temporary asylum in Russia.

“Now the government might deny these things,” Snowden said. “They might frame it in certain ways, and say, ‘Oh, well, you know, he’s a low-level analyst.’ But what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to use one position that I’ve had in a career, here or there, to distract from the totality of my experience, which is that I’ve worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, undercover, overseas.”

Snowden is referring to initial reactions by the executive branch that downplayed his role in the NSA. President Barack Obama reportedly told journalists in June 2013 that he was not going to “be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker.”

“So when they say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say that it’s somewhat misleading.”

In regard to his temporary asylum, Snowden said that he did not expect to call Russia his home.

“I personally am surprised that I ended up here,” Snowden told Williams. “The reality is I never intended to end up in Russia.”

Snowden blames the State Department for his exile.

“I had a flight booked to Cuba and onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in the Moscow Airport,” Snowden said. “So when people ask ‘Why are you in Russia?’ I say, ‘Please ask the State Department.’”

Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday morning responded to Snowden’s interview, saying the NSA leaker should come back to the U.S. and defend himself like “a patriot.”

Appearing on NBC’s “Today Show,” Kerry responded to Snowden’s claim that the reason that he is in Russia is because of the State Department.

“If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States today, we’ll have him on a flight today,” Kerry added. “We’d be delighted for him to come back. And that’s what a patriot would do. A patriot would not run away and look for refuge in Russia or Cuba or some other country. A patriot would stand up in the United States and make his case to the American people. But he’s refused to do that to this date, at least. The fact is that he can come home but he’s a fugitive from justice, which is why he’s not being permitted to fly around the world. It’s that simple and he knows it.”